While all of you East Coast types are still waiting for your water to become liquid again, those of us in Southern California have been out paddling. Today looked like it would be a great day on the water. The NOAA weather forecast was for light winds building to 10 - 15 in the afternoon, 2 - 3' foot seas, water temps around 52 - 55 and air temps of 76. In short another California day that was supposed to be the same as yesterday and the same as tomorrow. Since our weather forecasters don't really have to be all that smart to predict our weather, we were really surprised by the conditions we found at our launch point. The following is a report for all of you in the cold weather areas so you can experience some paddling vicariously. In spite of the strong off-shore winds, we all had a blast. Trip Report: Forward Stroke Clinic - Channel Islands Style I was really looking forward to taking the Forward Stroke Clinic that Aqua Adventures was putting on for CKF members today, but unfortunately the notice was too short and I had already made plans to paddle with several other people. Instead, we had our own forward stroke clinic courtesy of King Neptune today. Ten of us met at Channel Islands Harbor this morning to paddle to Oil Platform Gina. The weather forecast called for on-shore winds of 10 knots or less, swell of 2'-4' and air temps of around 76. It should have been a beautiful day to paddle. The actual weather when we arrived at the launch site was OFF-Shore winds of at least 10 - 15 knots while we were on the beach inside the harbor and we could see both Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands very clearly. That is not a good sign as it meant the off-shore winds were holding back the marine layer. At this point, one of the 10 opted to do a harbor paddle and the rest of us decided to change to a coastal paddle. We launched and had an effortless paddle to The Pond with that 15 knot wind to our backs. We turned West at the end of the jetty and another paddler decided to go back to the harbor. We were now 8 brave souls paddling beam to an even stronger wind of 15 - 20 knots with gusts of about 25. By the time we reached the end of the breakwater (not that it would give us any relief from the wind since it was in our lee, another paddler decided to stay in the harbor and turned around. Now we were seven. We slogged on with winds hitting sustained speeds of about 25 knots on occasion and a steady 15 - 20. It was slow going and we were getting very wet from the whitecaps that were breaking on us and around us. Every once in a while it would be necessary to brace to keep from being blown over sideways, feathered paddles of less than 90 degrees would occasionally fly up. Most of us had paddle leashes attached and at least knew to let go of the end of the paddle flying up and letting it flip over while being held in our down wind hand. It was also interesting to watch most of us using shorter paddles in a very low angle stroke instead of our normal high angle vertical strokes because of how strong the wind was. Our group of seven broke down into smaller groups of two while George paddled on ahead of the rest of us scouting things out. I think his boat has only two speeds - on or off. Rescues would have been difficult in the wind today. Turning the boats was difficult. Those with rudders and extremely long boats were finding that their boats were lee cocking and required full continuous rudder to stay straight. Those of us with skegs were continuously adjusting them and knee hanging at the same time to keep going straight. The longer ruddered boats found that it was almost impossible to turn into the wind. From a stop and doing leaned reverse extended sweeps, they still could not turn. Those boats needed to be moving to turn. Patrick, in his CD Extreme, and I, in my CD Gulfstream, noticed we were on the wrong side of each other. His boat kept wanting to lee cock into my boat, and my boat kept wanting to weather cock into his. We were deliberately staying close to each other so we could talk over the wind and also be in position if a rescue was necessary without a lot of maneuvering. The shorter more rockered British style boats were able to turn, but it was taking some heavy leaning and extended paddle strokes. We paddled to the power station almost 4 NM away and then took a short break and turned back. Of course the wind shifted slightly and we still had a beam wind slightly off the port bow to paddle against. It was hard work, but we finally landed back at Kiddie Beach. George called on the radio to find where we were because he again left us in his wake on the return. Maybe he has an unseen motor in that boat. John P and Peter O tried to give him a run for his money, but just as they were catching up to him, George sped up again. Patrick and I stayed together and chatted to keep our minds off of the effort we were having to exert. When we landed, the balls of my feet hurt from all of the pushing I was doing against the foot pegs. Patrick said I was lucky, only one of his feet hurt because he had to keep the other foot off so that he could use his other foot to push the rudder. The award for the most amazing performance in a sea kayak goes to Lee today. Lee has been paddling for much less than a year and was in his brand new WS Tempest 170. He handled everything like he's been paddling for years. Of course most of us Tilley Hat wearers (Inside joke - meaning over 50 crowd) were amazed to see him paddle today in the wind after paddling 18 NM yesterday in Orange County with Duane Strosaker and Dublin Dave. How strong was the wind, you may ask. It was strong enough that my deck lines were whistling loudly. I've never heard that happen before and it was a little annoying. However, the alternative of paddling without deck lines is not an option in my opinion. The grand finale of today's trip was when we walked over to Daddy-O's for our usual tri-tip sandwiches for lunch and we found it closed. The sign on the door said "GONE SAILING". So it was burritos from Peppy's but we still walked across the street and ate sitting in Daddy-O's chairs. Steve Holtzman Southern CA *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. 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